LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Navarre. A Park, with a Palace in it.

Enter the King, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.

KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live regifter'd upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the difgrace of death;
When, fpite of cormorant devouring time,
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honour, which fhall bate his fcythe's keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors!-for so you are,
That war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's defires,-
Our late edict fhall strongly stand in force:
Navarre fhall be the wonder of the world;
Our court fhall be a little Academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.

You three, Birón, Dumain, and Longaville,
Have fworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes,
That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are paft, and now subscribe your names;
That his own hand may strike his honour down,
That violates the smallest branch herein:

If you are arm'd to do, as fworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oath,' and keep it too.

LONG. I am refolv'd: 'tis but a three years' fast; The mind shall banquet, though the body pine: Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but bank'rout quite the wits.

DUM. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified 1; The groffer manner of these world's delights He throws upon the grofs world's bafer flaves: To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die; With all these living in philofophy."

BIRON. I can but fay their proteftation over, So much, dear liege, I have already fworn, That is, To live and ftudy here three years. But there are other ftrict obfervances: As, not to fee a woman in that term Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there: And, one day in a week to touch no food; And but one meal on every day befide; The which, I hope, is not enrolled there: And then, to fleep but three hours in the night, And not be seen to wink of all the day; (When I was wont to think no harm all night, And make a dark night too of half the day ;) Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there:

your deep oath,] The old copies have oaths. Corrected by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

2 With all thefe living in philofophy.] The ftyle of the rhyming scenes in this play is often entangled and obfcure. I know not certainly to what all these is to be referred; I fuppofe he means, that he finds love, pomp, and wealth in philosophy. JOHNSON.

By all thefe, Dumain means the King, Biron, &c. to whom he may be fuppofed to point, and with whom he is going to live in philofophical retirement. A. C.

O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep;
Not to fee ladies, ftudy, fast, not sleep.3

KING. Your oath is pafs'd to pafs away from these. BIRON. Let me fay no, my liege, an if you please; I only fwore, to ftudy with your grace, And stay here in your court for three years' space. LONG. You fwore to that, Biron, and to the rest. BIRON. By yea and nay, fir, then I swore in jest.— What is the end of study? let me know.

KING. Why, that to know, which else we should not know.

BIRON. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common fense?

KING. Ay, that is ftudy's god-like recompenfe. BIRON. Come on then, I will fwear to ftudy fo, To know the thing I am forbid to know: As thus,-To ftudy where I well may dine, When I to feast exprefsly am forbid ;4 Or, study where to meet fome mistress fine, When miftreffes from common sense are hid :

3 Not to fee ladies, Study, faft, not sleep.] The words as they ftand, will exprefs the meaning intended, if pointed thus:

Not to fee ladies-study-faft-not fleep.

Biron is recapitulating the feveral tasks impofed upon him, viz. not to fee ladies, to study, to faft, and not to fleep: but Shakfpeare, by a common poetical licence, though in this paffage injudiciously exercised, omits the article to, before the three laft verbs, and from hence the obfcurity arifes. M. MASON.

* When I to feast expressly am forbid ;] The copies all have: "When I to faft exprefsly am forbid ;"

But if Biron ftudied where to get a good dinner, at a time when he was forbid to fast, how was this studying to know what he was forbid to know? Common sense, and the whole tenour of the context, require us to read-feast, or to make a change in the laft word of the verfe :-" When I to faft exprefsly am fore-bid;" i. e. when I am enjoined before-hand to faft. THEOBALD.

Or, having fworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it, and not break my troth.
If study's gain be thus, and this be fo,5
Study knows that, which yet it doth not know:
Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say, no.

KING. These be the ftops that hinder ftudy quite, And train our intellects to vain delight.

BIRON. Why, all delights are vain; but that most

vain,

Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain:
As, painfully to pore upon a book,

To feek the light of truth; while truth the while Doth falfely blind the eyefight of his look:

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile :
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by lofing of your eyes,
Study me how to please the eye indeed,
By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

Who dazzling fo, that eye fhall be his heed,
And give him light that was it blinded by."

If ftudy's gain be thus, and this be fo,] Read:
If ftudy's gain be this. RITSON.

while truth the while

Doth falfely blind-] Falfely is here, and in many other places, the fame as dishonestly or treacherously. The whole sense of this gingling declamation is only this, that a man by too close Study may read himself blind; which might have been told with lefs obfcurity in fewer words. JOHNSON.

Who dazzling fo, that eye shall be his heed,

And give him light that was it blinded by.] This is another paffage unneceffarily obfcure; the meaning is: that when he daxxles, that is, has his eye made weak, by fixing his eye upon a fairer eye, that fairer eye shall be his heed, his direction or lode-ftar, (See Midfummer-Night's Dream,) and give him light that was blinded by it. JOHNSON.

The old copies read-it was. Corrected by Mr. Steevens.

MALONE.

Study is like the heaven's glorious fun,

That will not be deep-search'd with faucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights,

Than those that walk, and wot not what they are. Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.8

KING. How well he's read, to reafon against

reading!

DUM. Proceeded well, to ftop all good proceed

ing !9

LONG. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.

BIRON. The fpring is near, when green geese are a breeding.

DUM. How follows that?

• Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame;

And every godfather can give a name.] The confequence, fays Biron, of too much knowledge, is not any real folution of doubts, but mere empty reputation. That is, too much knowledge gives only fame, a name which every godfather can give likewife. JOHNSON.

• Proceeded well, to ftop all good proceeding!] To proceed is an academical term, meaning, to take a degree, as he proceeded bachelor in phyfick. The fenfe is, he has taken his degrees in the art of hindering the degrees of others. JOHNSON.

So, in a quotation by Dr. Farmer: "-fuch as practise to proceed in all evil wife, till from Batchelors in Newgate, by degrees they proceed to be Maifters, and by defert be preferred at Tyborne." I cannot ascertain the book from which this paffage was transcribed. STEEVENS.

I don't fufpect that Shakspeare had any academical term in contemplation, when he wrote this line. He has proceeded well, means only, he has gone on well. M. MASON.